Album art is a crucial element to what makes a great album become monumental to the music fan. It gives us a vision and a feeling through visual sensations that are linked in the mind to the sounds that embody those ideas. A great album is intertwined into those concrete images and the two aspects make them whole. The following is a list of albums by some of the most influential, well known illustrators in the Arts Community. These artists are key figures in relation to how famous their art has become either by the success of the bands they worked for or the popularity of their own work.

Period 1991-2000 is perhaps one of the most understated periods of metal because of the decline of commercial metal and the emergence of grunge and then nu-metal.

But the period saw release of some kick arse releases. In fact for yours truly it was a major milestone in metal (does help I got into metal around 1992). These are my favourite albums/EPs from the period.

To walk the path of the metal poseur is to pick the plumpest of mainstream fruits and succour the sweet secretions contained within. It is the art of walking with giants of mainstream underground extremism whilst maintaining one foot firmly on the part of pop monumentalism.

The path is dangerous for the faux fur of metal consumerism is a tempting demon whore that claws at the inner self of underground triumphalism. These are the eagles that soar through the mind galleries of every metal poseur, no matter how compartmentalised their singularity may be.

A collection of all of my personal favorite black, black/thrash, black/death and black/doom metal. One album per band and in no particular order other than alphabetical. List will be updated semi-regularly so remember to stop by every so often!

The ★ signifies an album that is borderline perfect. Can you find them all?

OK, let's get this straight right now: THIS IS NOT A LIST OF MY FAVOURITE ALBUMS. Neither is it a 'Best Of' list in any shape, manner or form. And it is also not a list of albums I consider to be important in Metal history in general (though many of them assuredly would be considered so).

What this list is:
I started thinking about why I listen to Metal, and why I listen to certain bands and not others. And how my tastes have changed enormously in the approx 15 years I've been, as one might say, a Metalhead. I thought it would be interesting to look over my collection and pick out those albums I consider to be landmarks in my listening career and write a little bit about why each is significant to me.

These are my favorite 25 albums, not really in any particular order. They are favorites due to the fact I at least like every song on the album, and there are at least three songs on the album that I love.